If one or more files are to be made available for download to a multitude of clients, it is standard for the files that are to be downloaded not to be prepared and held at the ready on one server; instead, they are placed on several servers in order to allow for load distribution and greater available bandwidth.
If it is necessary for the files to be transferred securely and in an encrypted format, and in order to protect them against unauthorized access, tampering and unauthorized viewing, according to generally known methods, all servers that hold files available must have at least the possibility of establishing a secure connection, provided the files were encrypted even before being distributed across the servers. When distributing files across several servers in order to distribute load and higher bandwidth, it is thus not possible to rely on especially cheap, leased storage space on simple servers that do not establish secure connections.
In addition, by setting up a secure connection a considerably higher CPU load is generated on the server in comparison to an unsecure connection, because the server must calculate the encryption for each connection during the transmission. Correspondingly, when a large number of connections, it is necessary to have high-performance servers available in order to provide the required computing power.